It’s mid-January, and once again I am madly sewing 1920s fashions…but not for Art Deco Weekend. This time I have something even more novel and exciting – I’m a featured speaker at the Glory Days Salon at the Hamilton Gardens’ Mansfield Garden Party.
The Mansfield Garden Party (Sunday 7 Feb, 10-5) celebrates New Zealand’s most famous author (and one of my personal favourites) and one of her most famous works: The Garden Party (if you haven’t read it, do, it’s wonderful).
If you are in Hamilton or driving distance (come down from Auckland for the day!) do come along to the Salon (book tickets through the Glory Day’s link above).
I’ll be talking about garden party fashions in the first two decades of the 20th century, from the dresses Mansfield wore to garden parties in Wellington in 1907, like the one she wrote about in her story, and garden party styles in the early ’20s, when she wrote her story. And, of course, there will be models!
Come and learn, admire, and be admired! And bring a picnic!
It sounds wonderful!
I wish I could hop on a plane….
How fabulous! Wish I wasn’t on the wrong side of the planet for this event as I have just the dress for this event.
Just thinking of garden parties when we’re slated for a blizzard this weekend in Washington, DC is a delight. I’m so charmed by the dresses on this fashion plate, the bottom right pink frock and the center orange with that amazing spiderweb bag! They look like things Anna Pavlova would have worn, and they look like they’d suit a more hourglass figure instead of requiring the 20’s boyish model. That is a thing I’m always curious about: how does one adapt period clothes to one’s body if they aren’t really suited to one’s shape? I know not every woman in the 20s was a sleek, bright young thing, but almost all the costumers I see who do 20s certainly are!
It sounds splendid! I’d come if I didn’t live on the other side of the Earth. Even though anything I might once have worn for a 20s party is now sizes too small…I’d figure out how to adapt something or make it quickly!
I’ll see you there 🙂 very much looking forward to it. I guess I should hunt down the book you recommend first!
I linked to an online PDF of the story. It’s not long – Mansfield wrote poetry and short stories. 🙂